“I might be persuaded to take a shower and grab a few hours. But only if you promise to call it quits for the day, too,” he said.
“What I do and what you do are two totally separate things.”
He shook his head. “Uh-uh. I will not rest until you rest.”
“So chivalrous. Definitely must be the head injury. But if that’s what it takes to make you behave like a sensible person, so be it.”
Quinn smiled tiredly. “Then you’ve got yourself a deal, Parker.”
Half an hour later, her rescue team had gone their separate ways and the locksmith had arrived and started installing a new, reinforced door frame and security door. She grabbed Quinn by the arm and dragged him toward the front doors.
“Go get some sleep,” she told him as they reached the sidewalk. She gave him a shove in the back to send him on his way.
He took a step before turning. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
Amy wasn’t listening. She was too busy staring over his shoulder at the man in the expensive suit climbing out of a late-model Mercedes on the other side of the street. He was carefully not looking her way, but she’d bet her last cent Barry Ulrich had come down here to gloat and admire his handiwork.
Quinn turned to follow her sight line. She took a step toward the curb. His hand shot out to grab her forearm.
“No.”
She tore her gaze from Ulrich to look at Quinn. “I just want to let him know I’m not about to run away with my tail between my legs.”
“You heard what the police said. Without evidence directly linking Ulrich to the men who broke into the Grand, we’ve got nothing but suspicion. And you don’t need me to tell you that suspicion means zip in a court of law.”
“So he gets off scot-free?”
“Not necessarily. We have to wait and see. And in the meantime you can’t say anything to him. I want you to promise me you won’t.”
She tried to pull her arm from his grasp but he was too strong.
“Could you let me go, please?” she said through gritted teeth.
“Not until you promise me you’ll let me handle this.”
“Believe it or not, before you came flying into town with your cape billowing, I managed fine on my own. I don’t need a babysitter, and I certainly don’t need a keeper.”
“Fine.” He let her go but didn’t walk away. “Just so you know, guys like Ulrich love a fight. You take it up to him, he’ll use it against you and come back at you ten times harder.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “So I should cower in the corner and thank my lucky stars he didn’t set the Grand on fire. Is that what you’re suggesting?”
“Play it smart. Be patient. Let the cops investigate.”
She knew he was right. She wouldn’t get anything except satisfaction out of taking a shot at Ulrich. But still…
She let her breath out on a noisy sigh. “Okay. Fine. You win. I promise not to say anything to him.”
She knew she sounded like a sulky kid but the tight look around Quinn’s mouth relaxed.
“Good choice.”
She rolled her eyes. “Spare me your approval, Sir Galahad. And good night.”
She strode back into the Grand, leaving him standing on the sidewalk. She knew she was taking her temper out on the wrong person, but she hated the thought that Ulrich might get away with what he’d done.
It wasn’t until she’d locked the front doors behind her and slipped out past the locksmith that she remembered she’d promised to take the tray back to the bakery after she was finished with it.
“Damn it.”
Sighing, she swiveled on her heel. There was a single muffin left and she took a bite out of it as she crossed the street, tray in hand. Apple and cinnamon. Not her favorite, but it would do.
The guys in the bakery were busy with the morning rush and she left the tray on the counter after making eye contact with one of them and mouthing her thanks. A great wave of weariness swept over her as she turned to go. She needed to get some sleep.
She saw Ulrich the moment she stepped onto the sidewalk. He was standing a few paces away with a guy she recognized as his foreman. They were facing the Grand and Ulrich was sketching shapes in the air with his hands, pointing to the windows, the roofline. His foreman was making notes on a notebook, nodding his head.
As though Ulrich owned the Grand and his foreman was making plans to bring Ulrich’s vision to life.
Not. Freaking. Likely.
Not in her lifetime.
Anger born of outrage and fear rose up inside her. She didn’t stop to think, just strode across to block their view.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
Barry looked startled for a few seconds, then a patronizing smile curled his lips.
“Ms. Parker. Allow me to offer my sympathies. I hear you’ve had a bit of a rough time overnight.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, and don’t think I don’t know who’s responsible for that, asshole.”
The smile dropped from Ulrich’s face. His pale blue eyes grew hard. “I know you’re not familiar with business and the way professionals usually conduct themselves, so I’m going to give you a tip, Ms. Parker. Watch your mouth.”
“Why, asshole? Because if I don’t you’ll hire someone else to vandalize the Grand? Is that what you’re saying, asshole?”
Ulrich’s nostrils flared. “I’d be very careful what kind of accusations I threw around if I were you.”
“If I were you, I’d remember who owns the Grand. Asshole.”
Suddenly Ulrich was in her face, breathing bad coffee breath on her, so close she could see where he’d missed a few whiskers when he shaved this morning.
“Listen up, little girl. I don’t need to lift a finger to ensure you’ll fail because you’ll do that all on your own. If you’d had half a brain, you would have taken my offer while you had the chance. Now you’re going to lose everything. I almost feel sorry for you.”
He stared into her eyes for a long moment, then turned away.
“Come on, Brian,” he said to his foreman, not even looking at the other man as he walked away.
Her hands were shaking. No use pretending they weren’t. Barry Ulrich was one scary, angry bastard. She watched him walk away, feeling very small and impotent and vulnerable.
“Hey, Barry!” she called after him.
He glanced over his shoulder impatiently. Amy wound back her arm, took aim and threw in one smooth move. The muffin hit him dead center of the forehead before crumbling down the front of his expensive suit.
He blinked, his mouth open, utterly stunned. A tide of crimson color washed up his neck and into his face. She made a big show of dusting her hands together and turning her back on him. Despite the bravado her heart was banging against her rib cage.
Shit.
He looked so angry. Almost psychotic.
She crossed the street to the Grand, resisting the urge to break into a run, expecting to feel a hand on her shoulder with every step.
She’d grabbed the tiger by the tail and given it a big old yank and any minute now the tiger was going to pounce on her and rip her head off.
It wasn’t until she was in the Grand and the doors locked that she felt safe enough to look back across the street.
Ulrich was on the phone. One hand dusted muffin crumbs off the front of his suit as he spoke, his dead, flat eyes fixed on her.
The reality of what she’d done sunk in.
Quinn was going to kill her.
IT WASN’T UNTIL he got back to the apartment that Quinn remembered he’d planned to check out that morning and move into his parents’ place. He was so tired that for a few minutes he contemplated booking in for another night just so he could crawl straight into bed. Then he told himself to man up and went to his room to pack. It didn’t take long and within fifteen minutes he was at the front desk handing over his credit card.
Familiar smells rushed at him when he opened the d
oor to his old family home. His mother’s homemade potpourri, his father’s pipe tobacco, furniture polish. The place was dark and he dumped his overnight bag in the hall and did a quick lap of the house, opening curtains and blinds as he went. He pushed open his old bedroom door last and stood in the doorway staring at his single bed and the various movie and sports posters covering his walls.
Hello, 1997.
He crossed to the window and pulled the curtains wide. Outside, the straggly privet hedge still struggled to create a privacy barrier between this house and the Parkers’ next door. He stared at Amy’s old bedroom window, facing his across the way.
He’d almost done something really stupid today. If Amy hadn’t stepped back when she did…
He unlocked the window and gave the frame a thump with his closed fist before attempting to push it up. It stuck for a moment, then gave in a rush. Cool air flowed into the room as he pushed the window all the way open.
He breathed in the smell of wet earth and green things. Maybe this…thing he had for Amy was a reaction to being back home again after all these years. An X-rated form of nostalgia.
Or maybe he’d never quite gotten over the crush he’d had all those years ago, and it was only now that he was getting a divorce that he was allowing himself to acknowledge the attraction again.
Or maybe he simply needed to grab a good night’s sleep and wake up with some much-needed perspective. Because at the end of the day, if it came down to a battle between short-term lust and long-term friendship, friendship was the winner every time. Right?
Right?
He returned to the entrance hall to get his bag then grabbed some sheets from the hall cupboard to make up his bed. He hadn’t slept in a single bed since he’d left home. He wasn’t looking forward to reliving the experience.
He took a few minutes to examine his injuries in the bathroom mirror before he showered. The bruise on his face wasn’t as bad as he’d thought and while his ribs were sore, they weren’t overly painful. Not cracked, then, he figured.
He showered quickly, then walked naked back into his old bedroom. His bed sagged in the middle as it took his weight. He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes.
A few hours of shut-eye and the world would right itself.
A great theory, but as he drifted toward sleep, images from the day slipped into his unguarded mind. He saw Amy’s eyes staring into his, full of trust and concern. He smelled her warm, soft scent. He remembered the pink of her nipples. Felt again the press of her hands on his body.
The problem with lusting after someone you’d known for years was that it was hard to separate the lust from the liking and the love that had always been there.
He tried hard to remember why that was such a bad thing as sleep finally took him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“HEY.”
Amy nearly dropped the putty knife she was holding as she whirled to face Quinn the next morning.
He gave her a quizzical look. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
Despite the bruise on his jaw, he looked delicious in worn jeans and a dark gray T-shirt. Her heart did its usual little kick-skip before resuming normal duties.
“I’m good. Just not expecting you.”
He checked his watch. “It’s right on eight.”
“Sure. I meant I didn’t hear you. That’s all.” She gave him an overly bright smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Nothing that won’t heal.”
The guilt and anxiety she’d been experiencing ever since she lobbed the muffin at Ulrich tightened around her chest. She should have called Quinn yesterday and told him what she’d done. But she hadn’t, and she’d been living in fear of someone else telling him ever since. Every time the phone had rung last night she’d flinched, anticipating a blistering lecture from him for her stupid, impulsive act. But he hadn’t called, because clearly he hadn’t heard yet, despite the fact that there had been several witnesses to her muffin assault and gossip was practically one of the five food groups in Daylesford.
So tell him now. Tell him right now before he hears it from someone else.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
If there was one thing she’d never been able to stand, it had been Quinn’s disapproval. Worse still, his disappointment. He’d warned her. Told her not to approach Ulrich. But she’d let her emotions override her.
“We should get started. Dad’s going to deliver more primer this afternoon and I figure if we go hard we can probably get most of the cracks and holes filled today,” she said.
Quinn was still watching her as though he was trying to work something out. She was such a crap liar. Always had been.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“Absolutely. Just keen to get stuck into it, that’s all. Make sure we don’t let Ulrich put us off schedule.”
She turned and grabbed a bucket of premixed spackling compound before he could ask any more questions.
“Might as well do what we did the other day,” she said. “I’ll handle the foyer and balcony while you do down here. The scaffolding should arrive some time this afternoon, so that should make things a lot easier for you, save you moving the ladder around as much.”
She didn’t look back at him as she headed for the foyer. Once she was out of sight she stopped and smacked herself on the forehead with her open palm. Seriously, what did she think she was going to achieve, putting off telling him what she’d done?
There’s always a chance Ulrich will let it slide, a little voice volunteered in the back of her mind. Then Quinn won’t have to know how stupid you were. It was the weasel voice again, telling her what she most wanted to hear, and she knew better than to trust it.
And yet…
It was possible that Ulrich was so embarrassed about being assaulted by a woman armed with a bakery product that he’d let the whole thing slide. He was a short man, after all, and often short men were overly concerned with appearances and status.
That’s right, Amy, that’s the kind of guy he is—a wimp who’s more concerned with his dignity than winning. Not.
She pried the lid off the spackle bucket. She was simply going to have to wait Ulrich out, see what he did with the advantage she’d given him. Have her charged with assault, perhaps. Or maybe there was some other way he could use her impetuous act against her—not being a sneaky, underhanded lowlife, she wasn’t well-versed in these matters.
But before any of that happened, she’d tell Quinn. Definitely. Before lunch. Or at the very latest by the end of the day. Although maybe it would be best to take him out for dinner first, get him a little mellow with wine before confessing all.
She was still pondering how best to broach the subject when there was a knock on the front door around midday.
She was up the ladder in the balcony filling a large crack and she shouted down to Quinn, asking him if he was free to get it.
“Sure,” he hollered back.
She pressed spackle into the jagged crack, being careful not to overfill it so that it would be easy to sand back tomorrow. She was knifing up a fresh bladeful when she heard Quinn’s footsteps on the stairs.
“Who was it?” she asked.
Quinn didn’t immediately answer and she glanced over her shoulder to see him standing at the foot of the ladder, an official-looking envelope in hand.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Registered letter. From Ulrich’s lawyers.”
The blood rushed from her head.
Suddenly she wished she’d been brave enough to tell Quinn everything this morning. Hell, she should have called him the moment she’d realized how dumb she’d been. Maybe then they could have come up with some plan to neutralize whatever lay within that envelope.
Because there was no doubt in her mind that there was something unpleasant waiting to be unleashed from within that innocuous-looking piece of office stationery.
She forced her stiff arms and legs to descend the lad
der. Then she put down the putty knife and bucket of filler and reached out to take the envelope from Quinn.
“It’s probably another offer to buy the Grand,” he said reassuringly. “At a bargain price, naturally, now that you’ve been bullied into submission.”
She slipped her thumb beneath the flap and broke the seal. There was a many-paged document inside. She unfolded it and read the first page.
“What’s he offering?” Quinn asked.
Amy closed her eyes for a long beat. Quinn had warned her, after all. Ten times harder.
“Amy, what’s going on?”
She opened her eyes. Looked at Quinn. Took a deep breath. “He’s suing me for defamation.”
Quinn looked taken aback. “What the hell?”
He plucked the papers from her hands and scanned them quickly.
“It says here there was an incident on the morning of the twenty-eighth of April. That’s yesterday. He’s got a list of witnesses—” His gaze lifted to her face. “What did you do?” His voice was very low and flat.
She swallowed noisily. “I screwed up. I didn’t mean to, but I did. He was just so arrogant. I wanted him to know I wasn’t scared of him. But he knew I was. I could hardly stop my hands from shaking.”
“What happened?”
“He was standing in front of the Grand, talking to his foreman, dictating notes on stuff he wanted to do. You know, once the place was his. It just really…I saw red. So I asked him what he was doing, and he offered me his sympathy. Can you believe that?”
“Tell me the rest.”
“I told him that I knew he was the one who was responsible for me having a hard time. And I called him an asshole.”
Her stomach was churning and she’d started to sweat.
“He told me to watch my mouth, so I called him an asshole a few more times and asked if he was threatening to hire someone else to vandalize the place. Then he got in my face and told me I was going to fail and how happy that was going to make him.”
She wiped her damp hands down the front of her jeans.
“Is there anything else I should know?” Quinn asked.
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